Violet Brielle Spataro

This is the face that I fight for. A fire has been lit within my heart in recent months to connect with other families going through the battle of childhood cancer. I offer whatever I can ... Prayers, encouragement, information, Violet's survival story, handmade hats from our shop for their children ... anything that can help. I know that every act of kindness that you can get when your child is in treatment and in monitoring makes a world of difference. When Violet was diagnosed with cancer, a few very kind friends reached out to me and offered the contact information of other families they knew were going through the same with their children. At the time, I could not bring myself to contact these families. It was too much. I have so much empathy that when I talk to someone on the phone who has a cold I start to feel symptoms, so I just could not imagine taking on more than our own battle with cancer as it was overwhelming. I needed all of my strength to get my family th...

This week is World Retinoblastoma Awareness Week. Early diagnosis is crucial to offer the best chances of saving a child's sight and life. In honor of our brave little fighter, we are re-posting our very first post so that you may understand how the majority of children are diagnosed ... by their parents noticing the signs first and fighting to have their child seen by a specialist. On Monday, July 18th, our sweet baby girl Violet was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma, a very rare form of pediatric cancer that develops in the retina of the eye. The doctors did not catch this. We did. We don't know exactly when Violet got this cancer but she was seen regularly after birth for her weekly appointments, her 2 month, 3 month and then was seen twice when she was 4 months old because she had a bad cold. At all appointments her eyes were looked at and nothing out of the ordinary was seen. I have read that in most cases of Retinoblastoma general practitioners do not catch this con...

For the first time in a very long time I feel like we are beginning to live a normal-focused life together as a family. It is an amazing feeling and I am so grateful for it. The days of being in the hospital on a weekly basis gets smaller and smaller in the past behind us. I thank God for that every single day. We are no longer living with family. We have recently moved into a home of our own and we love it very much. And, although we are still in financial strain with all the catching up we have to do, it was time. Time for us to be together on our own, in our own space and to just feel settled. To be able to unpack things from our home in California that we haven't even seen in over 2 years ... it's a wonderful thing! I can never express fully how thankful we are for all the help we have received to get us to this point. And, it is so reassuring to know that we have such an amazing support system to help us get through the years to come with Violet's monitoring ap...